


Died last night in my dreams

by minzimpression



Series: winterhawk one-shots [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Day 2, Hate at first sight (that develops into love), M/M, Panic Attacks, Winterhawk Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:27:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minzimpression/pseuds/minzimpression
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally meeting Bucky Barnes was a fucking disappointment. </p>
<p>[Winterhawk Week Day 2 - Hate at first sight (that develops into love)]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Died last night in my dreams

**Author's Note:**

> written for winterhawk week. apparently i'm not able to write shorter stuff.

Finally being able to meet Bucky Barnes -- legendary Winter Soldier, best friend of Captain America, and brain-washed assassin -- was a highlight in his life that Clint Barton had been looking forward to.

Because brain-washed sniper bro’s and all that shit. Nobody, not even Clint’s therapist, could understand what exactly Clint had been through during Loki’s meddling with his mind. He had the feeling that he could finally talk to someone that simply _understood_.

Eventually meeting him, though. _That_ was a fucking disappointment.

Clint never believed people who told him about hate at first sight.

That was until he met Bucky Barnes.

~+~

The whole team was gathered in the tower after Steve had announced that he was bringing Bucky with him. Bucky had been finally cleared by Director Coulson personally. There were still the government and the media to handle, but Bucky was a free man. For now.

So they had decided to throw that poor man a little Welcome Party. It had been Tony’s idea. Clint had the feeling that Steve probably wouldn’t agree with that but Tony and Steve disagreed in everything, nowadays. So Tony went ahead without consulting Steve first.

In hindsight, Clint should have talked Tony out of that idea.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, everyone was yelling ‘WELCOME HOME, BUCKY!’ and throwing confetti. Tony even let a bottle of champagne pop open and showered Steve and Bucky in it. 

The result should have been predictable. 

Bucky lashed out at the noise, kicked Tony against the nearest wall and fell in a fighting stance in front of Steve. 

And Clint couldn’t help but laugh.

Bucky looked ridiculous in that (now wet) Captain America sweater, wet strands of hair plastered against his face and looking like Grumpy Cat. Sadly, no one else was laughing and Bucky narrowed his eyes at him, slowly relaxing again while Steve was talking miles a minute to get him to calm down again.

Tony groaned in the background; Wanda took pity on him and helped him up.

The other Avengers were looking a bit taken aback when Steve sent them all a death glare. 

“Maybe a warning next time?” he asked in his best Captain America voice and the team mumbled a few apologies. 

Steve broke out in a grin after that and nodded at the food and drinks. 

“Thank you, guys. This is unexpected, but nice. Right, Buck?” he nudged his best friend and Bucky just shrugged.

“I guess,” he said and Steve gently shoved him towards the others. 

“You kind of know everyone, already. Well except Clint and Wanda,” Steve told Bucky and Wanda was right in front of Clint all of the sudden, and was charming a smile out of Bucky. 

After their introduction Wanda practically floated away, taking Steve with her which left Clint as the last.

“Hi, I’m Clint. Clint Barton,” Clint said and hold out his hand. Bucky raised an eyebrow and didn’t take the hand. 

“The brain-washed archer?” he asked and Clint nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, actually I wanted to—“ he started.

“No,” Bucky said and turned around to go to the buffet where Tony was still pouting. (“Sorry,” he said gruffly. Tony just shrugged and gave him a plate of shrimps.)

And Clint was standing there, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Bucky now actually had a pleasant conversation with Tony, talking about his arm and Tony’s suit of armor.

What a fucking asshole, Clint thought bitterly.

He really had wanted to talk with Bucky about their…well… things in common but Bucky ignored him the whole evening. Clint had tried to talk to him a few times without mentioning his (maybe stupid) conversation starter but Bucky wouldn’t even look at him. He made it pretty obvious that he wouldn’t want to be even near Clint.

After two hours of the most depressing party (only for him, though) ever, Clint excused himself and went down to his own floor. There he skyped with his two oldest kids for a while and went to bed early.

But sleep wouldn’t come. 

_You have heart_ was ghosting around in his head, keeping him from falling to sleep. 

He would love to know how Bucky – no _Barnes_ \- was coping with all this. Did he have nightmares like Clint? Was he thinking about the stuff he did while being under a foreign influence in his head? How the fuck was Barnes able to live with himself?

“FRIDAY?” Clint asked hours later into the darkness of his room.

“Yes, Agent Barton?” FRIDAY replied instantly.

“How’s Barnes doing?” 

“He’s fast asleep in Captain Rogers’ rooms, Sir.”

“Oh…”

God, Clint hated him.

~+~

Apparently, everybody loved Barnes.

He was one charming motherfucker and was competing with Steve for the position of the best troll of the tower. 

The few conversations they managed to have, were stiff and awkward. No. Clint and Barnes weren’t exactly friends.

~+~

They were a disaster in the field.

Barnes always shot the guys whom Clint had picked out for himself. It was driving Clint nuts.

“Barnes, what the fuck? Don’t get in my fucking way,” Clint would always complain. 

Steve would always tell him to keep it easy.

Natasha would always tell him not to be such a jealous asshole.

Barnes would always stay quiet and would continue shooting the bad-guys-of-the-day around Clint.

Clint hated that arrogant douche.

~+~

There was that one time when everyone but Barnes and Clint weren’t in the tower. 

Clint had prepared himself a snack in the communal kitchen when a new panic attack had hit him with full force. One second, he couldn’t decide what to put on his sandwich and in the next second, he was on the floor, gripping his head and sobbing.

He had no idea how that happened. Loki and what he did just popped up in his head every now and then. Clint could shove his fears and panic attacks away most of the time. _Most of the time_. But normally, that would happen in extremely stressful situations (a fight or something similar) and he could cover Clint Barton’s feelings with Hawkeye (purposeful) strength.

But now...unguarded and relaxed.

Clint couldn’t handle it.

He just couldn’t.

He was crying ugly tears, hugging himself and was convinced that Loki was in his head again.

Clint looked up when he heard a gasp that wasn’t his and stared into Barnes’s wide eyes. Clint just sobbed again and held out one hand.

_Help me._

Barnes looked like he wanted to say something and took a step forward. But then he hesitated and turned around, escaping from the scene.

Clint buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly.

(Natasha found him like that half an hour later and insisted that he would take a break at the farm.)

~+~

His ex-wife and his kids patched him back together.

It took them three weeks.

~+~

Clint returned to the Avengers when some old legacy of Zola awakened again and terrorized New York. It was creepy when the city was stormed by hundreds of men in old Hydra uniforms. 

They needed the help of everyone available. 

Together with Spider-Man, Deadpool and the Fantastic Four the Avengers won a two-day-long battle.

All of them were in the hospital afterwards. They were exhausted, bruised and most of them were badly hurt. 

Steve was worse than after the D.C. incident. 

… And they had put Clint into one room with Barnes of all people.

They didn’t talk at all in the first hours of silence in the room. The nurse gave Clint the good stuff for the night and he was knocked out before the evening news.

Unfortunately he was woken up by a shaky voice in the middle of the night.

“Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7.” was the first thing Clint heard when he blinked awake.

A sob.

“James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7.” 

Clint turned his head around. He couldn’t make out much in the darkness of the room but he could hear Barnes mumbling and his shoulders were shaking.

“James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7,” Barnes said again, _crying._. “No. This is 70 years later. James Barnes. Bucky Barnes. No Sergeant….”

And Clint’s heart broke. (Why did he care?)

He stumbled out of the bed and fumbled his way to the other bed. 

“Barnes, hey Barnes,” he said, shaking his shoulders. “Look at me.”

Barnes turned and Clint bit his lip when he could make out the red and puffy eyes. 

“It’s not 1943, I promise,” Clint told him. “It’s 2015. Hydra is gone. We’re safe.”

Barnes stared at him, mouth forming words but nothing came out.

“We fought them. It was just a pathetic leftover from the 70’s. Hydra is gone,” Clint repeated.

Barnes stared some more, blinked and slowly sat up. Clint was sliding to the far edge of the bed with that movement and held his shoulder a bit tighter so he didn’t fall of the bed. 

“Yes,” Barnes said. “It’s 2015. I’m Bucky. I’m almost 100 years old.”

“You look pretty good for a senior citizen,” Clint couldn’t help but say.

Barnes snorted and tried to discreetly dry his face with his right hand. Clint looked away at that, pretending to study the outlines of the ugly picture which was hanging on the wall. 

They didn’t say anything more because Clint felt suddenly awkward and Barnes was lost in his thoughts again.

Clint must have fallen asleep at some point because when he woke up the next morning he was in his bed, but couldn’t remember lying down. A nurse was shaking him gently. She and Clint were the only ones in the room.

“Where is Barnes?” he asked sleepily and why the hell was he interested in that? Why was Barnes the first thought in his barely-awake mind?

“He was discharged an hour ago. Together with Miss Romanov and Mr. Stark. I think, they went back to the tower.”

“Huh,” Clint said and hold out his arm, so she could check his blood pressure. 

“Yes. You’re going to stay here for another night. Your file says that you jumped from a building, only to crash into another one. Why didn’t you wait for air support?” she chided him.

“I had to jump to get the right angle for the arrow,” Clint explained. “They were getting too close to Barnes and Cap.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, writing the blood pressure results down. “What use are you to the Avengers, if you’re dead?”

~+~

Clint entered the tower 24 hours later and was pleasantly surprised to find Lila and Cooper on his floor, playing on his PlayStation with Auntie Nat.

“Daddy!” they scrambled up from the couch and were rushing to him, hugging him tightly. Clint staggered back and crouched down on their level. 

He looked up at Nat over their heads and she just shrugged. 

“I asked Laura, if they could live here until you’re back 100%,” she said casually and Clint smiled. Oww, the smile was stretching the Band-Aids over his face.

“Thanks, Nat. Where are the others?” he asked her.

“Tony is in his workshop and James is back at the hospital, visiting Steve.”

“Really? I must have missed him then,” Clint said and planted a kiss on top on Lila’s head. His kids giggled and after kissing both of Clint’s cheeks they ran back to the TV.

Clint couldn’t sleep that night. Again. Even with the pain meds and being sandwiched between his children. 

He wondered if Barnes was okay. He had been pretty shaken last night and Clint hadn’t seen him today. He had been too preoccupied with Cooper and Lila. But why did he care?

He hated Barnes. 

Well, he thought he did. Clint couldn’t get the desperate voice out of his mind. Barnes had been so disoriented and scared.

“FRIDAY?” he whispered.

“Yes, Agent Barton?” FRIDAY whispered back in a soft voice.

“Is Barnes okay?” 

“He’s watching TV in the common room,” FRIDAY replied. “Do you want me to say something from you?”

“Nah,” Clint said, thinking for a while. “FRIDAY? How many disoriented break-downs or panic attacks did he have since he’s living here?”

“Approximately 38.”

Oh…

“Was he alone at all those times?”

“Yes, he asked me not to call for somebody every time. It’s mostly at night. I did call for Captain Rogers a few days ago, though. He wouldn’t snap out of it.”

“Good,” Clint mumbled and his heart ached again. It seemed that Barnes was worse than him. He just didn’t show it. 

Clint had thought that Barnes was just peachy with his past and totally not affected by Hydra.

Clint was very dumb sometimes.

“Tell that idiot, that he has to sleep eventually. Or send him here, if he refuses.”

“I will,” FRIDAY said amused. 

~+~

Two days later Clint had brought Lila and Cooper to the common room. FRIDAY had told him that Barnes was alone in the common room again (Clint had asked FRIDAY to inform him when Barnes was all alone, which wasn’t usual for him).

“Ohhh, you have such beautiful hair,” Lila announced their presence and before Barnes could say anything she was next to him on the couch, tugging at his hair.

“Can I braid it?”

“Lila…” Clint said warningly but the soft smile on Barnes’s lips stops him.

“Sure, go ahead,” the formerly scariest assassin on the planet said and Clint didn’t know what to say. He was astonished.

“Uh…meet Cooper and Lila, my kids,” Clint said but had the feeling that these words were unnecessary. 

Barnes gave him a ‘D’uh’ look and made a face when Lila tugged at his hair a bit too strong.

Clint chuckled and sat down on the big couch. Cooper chose the big love seat that Thor usually reserved for himself and took the remote. 

“Hey, ask first!” Clint chided. Cooper ducked and looked at Barnes with an apologetic look.

“Nah, it’s alright,” Barnes was patience itself. It was fascinating. 

Cooper grinned and started changing channels. His son settled for ‘Mulan’ of all things and yeah, Clint liked that movie too, so he leaned back. 20 minutes in, and he was completely relaxed. Lila chatted with Barnes about his metal arm, his hair, ponies and the fact that her dad had bigger arms than him.

In between two Disney films – Robin Hood was next – Clint roamed the communal kitchen for some snacks and had the feeling that he offering Barnes the popcorn had some kind of deeper meaning. Barnes seemed to think so too, because he hesitated for a moment but then took a handful.

“Thanks,” he said. Clint just shrugged and turned back to the TV.

Both of Clint’s kids were fast asleep by the time the credits from Robin Hood were rolling. Clint didn’t want them to sleep on the couch (no matter how comfortable it was) and gently picked Cooper up from the love seat. He had to bite back a groan because his whole fucking body still hurt. He didn’t want to walk two times but he sure as hell wasn’t able to carry both of them to his floor. 

“I’ll just bring them…uh to bed,” Clint told Barnes and made his way to the elevator. 

Imagine Clint’s surprise when Barnes stepped with him into the elevator, carrying Lila. 

When Clint stared, Bucky just shrugged. “I figured, you wouldn’t want to go twice.”

“Thank you,” Clint said in a relieved tone. 

They both didn’t say anything else and Clint winced when he put Cooper down onto the bed in the guest room. He should definitely take another pain killer. 

Barnes had tucked Lila in next to Cooper and Clint figured it would be only polite to bring Barnes back to the elevator. Or did Barnes want to continue watching TV? He should sleep…he did look tired as hell. Clint didn’t know what to do. 

“Well, then…good night?” he more or less asked and looked at Barnes and…suddenly realized what kind of hair Barnes now had. Lila had made a ridiculous amount of tiny braids. He looked so silly. Clint had to bite the insides of his cheeks to refrain himself laughing out loud. Laughing at Barnes was never a good idea, Clint knew that by now.

Barnes huffed and tugged at his own hair. 

“I’m sure this hair style suits me.”

He stepped inside the elevator when the doors opened but turned around again, standing between the doors. 

“One moment, FRIDAY,” he said.

Clint raised an eyebrow at him.

Barnes looked torn between wanting to say something and wanting to close the doors.

Eventually, he decided to say something.

“I’m sorry, you know,” he said, not looking at Clint.

“For what? Being the hair model for my daughter?”

“No…for…not _talking_ to you. You know, about…I get it. You wanted to share….experiences. And…not helping you with that…ah…panic attack in the kitchen.”

_Oh._

“Oh,” Clint said. 

It was clearly an uncomfortable topic for Barnes. He had gripped his metal hand with his right one and his right knuckles were white.

“But I can’t talk about it. I just can’t. I…I feel like I am two persons in one body. It’s…It’s hard to stay sane most of the time.” Barnes breathed out in a rush. 

“Uhm,”Clint said not very intelligently. There was a tension building and Clint was feeling awkward. 

“I get it—“ he started but Barnes interrupted him again.

“But I can…listen. If…you want,” he offered hesitantly and finally looked at Clint. His eyes were wide open and honest and they sparkled and Clint thought,

_He’s a damn fine specimen._

Okay then…he was clearly overtired. Because, this was ~~Bucky~~ Barnes and Clint Barton hated him.

More or less.

He couldn’t help the grin that was slowly spreading. If Barnes would just _listen_ , if Clint could _finally_ have somebody who was able to _understand_.

“Yes, thank you. That would be awesome, man.”

~~Barnes~~ Bucky smiled at that. It was small and Clint’s insides tingled with warmth. He took a step back from the elevator. Putting a safer distance between them. Refraining himself from doing anything stupid. Like stepping into the elevator again and start talking right now.

“Sure,” Bucky said and also took a step back. “Until later then,” Bucky still smiled and the elevator doors started to close.

“It’s a date,” Clint blurted out. 

The last thing he saw was Bucky’s irritated face before the doors closed.

“Oh my god,” Clint groaned and leaned his forehead against the next wall.

“What the fuck…?”

Something was very wrong with him.

~+~

(Nothing was wrong with him. He was just falling in love.)

~+~

(It took them four talks and one almost-panic attack from Clint until they kissed.)

(Clint loved Bucky’s calming methods.)

**Author's Note:**

>  my [tumblr](http://minzimpression.tumblr.com)


End file.
